1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for allowing an easy connection among devices supporting Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) communication using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication of the related art with Wi-Fi connection is mainly aimed to allow Wi-Fi-enabled devices to wirelessly perform communication through Access Points (APs), thus lacking the consideration of direct communication among Wi-Fi-enabled devices.
Taking into account that legacy Wi-Fi does not smoothly support direct communication among devices, the Wi-Fi Alliance has proposed a new feature called Wi-Fi Direct or Wi-Fi Peer to Peer (P2P).
Wi-Fi Direct is compatible with legacy Wi-Fi, and provides a function (e.g., P2P communication function) for allowing Wi-Fi devices to directly access each other for communication even without APs.
Because Wi-Fi Direct has been proposed taking into account the compatibility with Wi-Fi of the related art (i.e., legacy Wi-Fi), legacy Wi-Fi devices basically support WPS connection.
WPS connection allows devices attempting Wi-Fi connection to easily achieve Wi-Fi wireless communication through a button input by a Push Button Configuration (PBC) scheme or a Personal Identification Number (PIN) information input by a PIN scheme.
If a WPS session is enabled, a device attempting Wi-Fi connection determines the presence of APs through frequency and channel scanning, starts a WPS registration protocol with an AP whose WPS session is enabled, among the discovered APs, acquires credentials (e.g., Service Set IDentifier (SSID), Security Info, Network Key, and the like) of the AP, and automatically accesses the AP using the acquired credentials.
Advantageously, this WPS connection allows users to conveniently enjoy Wi-Fi wireless communication. Thus, supporting WPS connection not only for legacy Wi-Fi but also for Wi-Fi Direct may increase the convenience of using Wi-Fi Direct.
However, Wi-Fi Direct may support only devices complying with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11g standard or more (e.g., IEEE 802.11g or IEEE 802.11n). Hence, devices supporting only legacy Wi-Fi (e.g., devices complying with only IEEE 802.11b) may not support Wi-Fi Direct.
In this way, not all Wi-Fi devices may support Wi-Fi Direct. Thus, in order to support connection with WPS buttons even for Wi-Fi Direct connection, a WPS button for legacy Wi-Fi connection and a WPS button for Wi-Fi Direct connection need to be provided separately.
However, if WPS buttons for use of a legacy Wi-Fi function (e.g., wireless communication through AP access) and a Wi-Fi Direct function (e.g., P2P communication among Wi-Fi devices) are provided separately, the original intent to use the legacy Wi-Fi function or the Wi-Fi Direct function through a simple procedure may not be met. In addition, it may be convenient for users to use a sort of integrated Wi-Fi function, in which the users may select any one of legacy Wi-Fi connection and Wi-Fi Direct connection depending on the characteristics of the device corresponding to a connection target, by simply selecting one WPS button.
Therefore, a need exists for a WPS connection scheme capable of supporting both legacy Wi-Fi connection and Wi-Fi Direct connection by simply enabling WPS connection regardless of the Wi-Fi support standard and the properties of a Wi-Fi device.